By all accounts , outside of his work as a journalist ( agreed, debatable), Mr Russert was a genuinely nice guy. His death was unexpected, tragic even, and a grim reminder of our mortality.

So I'm thinking the reaction was had some aspects of "Wow, that could have been me " from his colleagues. Perhaps the deification as you put it comes from a subconscience desire to say nice things in a vain hope that the same courtesy would be returned if it happened to them.

Or it was a slow news cycle. Your choice . In any case he never impressed me as a particularly probing questioner either , not horribly vapid and ineffectual like Blitzer, but passable. However, he wasn't a complete asshole and he never let his success go to his head. That counts for something.